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Seattle Mind Camp 8 is coming up fast. For those of you who aren’t sure what to expect, this guide will hopefully give you a bit of an orientation. Even you Mind Camp veterans might want to look over the details, here, as a few things have changed this time around:

When should I arrive?
The doors will open at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, December 15. Opening remarks and introductions will start promptly at 12:00pm, so please arrive in time to check in, mingle, check out the session candidates along the walls. Note that if you’re hoping to present a session, you should arrive on time to post your Session Organizer Candidate Form.)

How do I get there?

Mind Camp 8 will be held at The Hub, the brand new coworking space in downtown Seattle. The address is 220 2nd Ave South, Seattle, 98104. It's one block east of Occidental Square and Grand Central Bakery, one block south of Smith Tower, three blocks north of the Seahawk’s CenturyLink Field, and directly across the street (to the east) from Waterfall Garden Park.

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Mind Camp is all about participation and networking - checking out what cool projects people are working on, and getting a chance to show off your own work, or to discuss your crazy off-the-wall ideas. We want to encourage everyone, therefore, to bring stuff. If you have a cool gadget you want to show off, bring it. If you’ve a website that you want to get some eyeballs on, bring your laptop (we’re working hard to make sure wireless will be readily available). Even if it’s just a cool book or piece of video, or anything that might spark an interesting conversation, bring it with you. We want everyone engaged and active and helping us out to make sure Mind Camp 8 blows the socks off of the last seven events. See you Saturday!

This is an updated version of a post originally published on April 28, 2006. Seattle Mind Camp 8 takes place December 15-16 - get your tickets now!

Most of you who have previously attended Seattle Mind Camp understand the free-form nature of the beast. However, many of you will be joining us for the first time, and I wanted to try to prepare you for the kind of event you’re going to encounter. Mind Camp is not a traditional type of gathering, and the success of the event depends in large part on the willingness of the participants to wrestle the chaotic mess into order.

Seattle Mind Camp is an “unconference,” in the style of Bar Camp or Foo Camp. The idea of an unconference has been promulgated by Dave Winer, among others. As I understand it, Winer’s particular insight was that, for any conference panel discussion, you could take any random group of people out of the audience, replace the panel onstage with that random group, and have an equally enlightening and worthwhile session. The Mind Camp experience seeks to leverage that idea by completely doing away with a pre-planned program of speakers. The day’s sessions will be designed by the attendees and the schedule will be curated by Andru Edwards and his Mind Camp Counselors team.

Seattle Mind Camp 7 is coming up fast. For those of you who aren’t sure what to expect, this guide will hopefully give you a bit of an orientation. Even you Mind Camp veterans might want to look over the details, here, as a few things have changed this time around:

When should I arrive?
The doors will open at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, August 20. Opening remarks and introductions will start promptly at 12:00, so please arrive in time to check in, mingle, check out the session candidates along the walls. Note that if you’re hoping to present a session, you should arrive on time to post your Session Organizer Candidate Form.)

How do I get there?

You’re going to the offices of ThinkSpace in downtown Redmond. The address is 8201 164th Ave NE, Redmond, 98052.

This is an updated version of a post originally published on April 28, 2006

Most of you who have previously attended Seattle Mind Camp understand the free-form nature of the beast. However, many of you will be joining us for the first time, and I wanted to try to prepare you for the kind of event you’re going to encounter. Mind Camp is not a traditional type of gathering, and the success of the event depends in large part on the willingness of the participants to wrestle the chaotic mess into order.

Seattle Mind Camp is an “unconference,” in the style of Bar Camp or Foo Camp. The idea of an unconference has been promulgated by Dave Winer, among others. As I understand it, Winer’s particular insight was that, for any conference panel discussion, you could take any random group of people out of the audience, replace the panel onstage with that random group, and have an equally enlightening and worthwhile session. The Mind Camp experience seeks to leverage that idea by completely doing away with a pre-planned program of speakers. The day’s sessions will be designed by the attendees and the schedule will be curated by Andru Edwards and his Mind Camp Counselors team.

Seattle Mind Camp 6.0 is coming up fast. For those of you who aren't sure what to expect, this guide will hopefully give you a bit of an orientation. Even you Mind Camp veterans might want to look over the details, here, as a few things have changed this time around: When should I arrive? The doors will open at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 21. Opening remarks and introductions will start promptly at 12:00, so please arrive in time to check in, mingle, check out the session candidates along the walls. Note that if you're hoping to present a session, you should arrive a few minutes before 10:00 to post your Session Organizer Candidate Form.) How do I get there?

This is an updated version of a post originally published on April 28, 2006

Most of you who have previously attended Seattle Mind Camp understand the free-form nature of the beast. However, many of you will be joining us for the first time, and I wanted to try to prepare you for the kind of event you’re going to encounter. Mind Camp is not a traditional type of gathering, and the success of the event depends in large part on the willingness of the participants to wrestle the chaotic mess into order.

Seattle Mind Camp is an “unconference,” in the style of Bar Camp or Foo Camp. The idea of an unconference has been promulgated by Dave Winer, among others. As I understand it, Winer’s particular insight was that, for any conference panel discussion, you could take any random group of people out of the audience, replace the panel onstage with that random group, and have an equally enlightening and worthwhile session. The Mind Camp experience seeks to leverage that idea by completely doing away with a pre-planned program of speakers. The day’s sessions will be designed by the attendees and the schedule will be created by the attendees themselves.

Seattle Mind Camp 5.0 is coming up fast. For those of you who aren’t sure what to expect, this guide will hopefully give you a bit of an orientation. Even you Mind Camp veterans might want to look over the details, here, as a few things have changed this time around:

When should I arrive?
The doors will open at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 22. Opening remarks and introductions will start promptly at 12:00, so please arrive in time to check in, mingle, check out the session candidates along the walls. Note that if you’re hoping to present a session, you should arrive a few minutes before 10:00 to post your Session Organizer Candidate Form.)

Josh Hallett has put together a very useful post titled “How to Blog a Conference.” He lists the hardware and software tools you’ll need, as well as team strategy for getting the best coverage. Having done some live blogging in the past for various events, I can tell you that this would have been a nice checklist to have before I got started.

We’d love to encourage as much blog and podcast coverage as possible from the floor of Mind Camp 3.0. If you’re thinking about using Josh’s techniques, let us know about it, would you? And Josh would appreciate some feedback as well.

The idea of an unconference is relatively new, so I suppose it’s not surprising that few people have a well-developed sense of how to plan and execute a top-notch unconference session. Time management, choosing compelling topics, or coping diplomatically with a participant who’s monopolizing the conversation can all be challenges, even for experienced conference presenters. So, whether you’re a newbie to November’s Mind Camp, or an experienced ‘Camper, you’ll really appreciate Scott Berkun’s latest post entitled “How to run a great unconference session.”

Scott’s post is filled with plenty of Dos and Don’ts, including some session patterns you can use to help shape your presentation. If you’ve signed up for Seattle Mind Camp, or any unconference, I’d encourage you to give it a read.